Monthly Archives: March 2016

Each week at All School Meeting, I speak to the girls of a woman or girl in the local, national, or global arena who inspires me. When I began this ten years ago, I had no idea how the girls would look forward to it, speak with me about it, or share their own inspirational women with me. It is the stories of these women that we relish as a community, that help us to understand the power and the possibilities they hold for all of us. This young tradition has become a part of the fabric of each week.

Inspired by the United State of Women Summit taking place at the White House in May, Girls in Government, Leadership, and Service (GGLS), a before-school class at Julia Morgan School for Girls (JMSG), is hosting a United State of Girls Rally & Summit on Saturday, May 14, from 9:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

We hope to have 100 middle and high school girls from public and private schools attend this special event. Our goal is to mobilize a national movement of teens 18 years and younger to finally pass the Equal Rights Amendment and the girls attending will be those girls who are willing to take on a leadership position in getting the ERA passed.

We plan to create a short video by the end of the event that we can send to the White House!

Remarkably, Gail Sheehy, feminist, best-selling author, and journalist will be giving the Keynote that morning. One of Ms. Sheehy’s books, Passages, was named by the Library of Congress as one of the 100 most influential books of the 20th century.

We will be live streaming the morning and have already received some interest from schools in Washington state and Alabama who would like to watch. The National Coalition of Girls’ Schools will also be publicizing the event for us.

This semester GGLS has been focusing on the cultural and historical context of how women have been viewed in the U.S. from the 1600’s to the present. We hope to understand why the U.S. is one of the approximately 30 countries in the world out of 195 yet to have a clause in their constitution stating the principle that women and men are equal.

As Justice Ginsburg has said, the ERA is an important statement for all in our country to see the acknowledgment of a basic principle of gender equality in our country’s foundational document.

These would be my personal subtitles for the incredibly inspiring and rewarding professional development experiences I had this summer.

First stop was Los Angeles for the Critical Friends New Coaches Training presented by the National School Reform Faculty. Two cohorts gathered to learn how to facilitate small groups of Critical Friends. From Day 1, we created a safe space for sharing our professional work, which often feels so deeply personal, and practiced giving and receiving feedback and support through group protocols emphasizing equity, efficiency, and purpose. I left the experience invigorated in my vision for a more collaborative and growth-minded school culture, asking myself, “What if teacher development began with the teacher’s own questions and desire for feedback? How could that change the culture of a school?”

With those dreams of a culture of feedback in mind, I went to Seattle a few weeks later to help coach a small cohort of teachers who wanted to learn how to implement design thinking in the classroom. Time to put my learning into action! After just two days of teacher training in design thinking and leadership development, these brave educators dove in and coached groups of high schoolers to complete a five-day sustainable food design challenge. So much juicy learning each day: here are jut a few thoughts from the journal I kept. “How often do we as teachers assume the right to give feedback to a student? How would it feel different if we began with ‘May I give you some feedback’ and asked the student to share what s/he wanted feedback on?” Or, “The d. school graphic representation of the design thinking process is a lie—it’s not a nice rainbow caterpillar, it’s a tumbleweed with a shooting star coming out of it!” Or, “The product of the design thinking process is so much less important than the student’s learning about themselves, leadership, and group process.” I just had a reunion with this cohort last Friday, and I am thinking about how we are all implementing new ways of teaching and being in the classroom and so each doing our part to move education forward.

With those dreams of a culture of feedback in mind, I went to Seattle a few weeks later to help coach a small cohort of teachers who wanted to learn how to implement design thinking in the classroom. Time to put my learning into action! After just two days of teacher training in design thinking and leadership development, these brave educators dove in and coached groups of high schoolers to complete a five-day sustainable food design challenge. So much juicy learning each day: here are jut a few thoughts from the journal I kept. “How often do we as teachers assume the right to give feedback to a student? How would it feel different if we began with ‘May I give you some feedback’ and asked the student to share what s/he wanted feedback on?” Or, “The d. school graphic representation of the design thinking process is a lie—it’s not a nice rainbow caterpillar, it’s a tumbleweed with a shooting star coming out of it!” Or, “The product of the design thinking process is so much less important than the student’s learning about themselves, leadership, and group process.” I just had a reunion with this cohort last Friday, and I am thinking about how we are all implementing new ways of teaching and being in the classroom and so each doing our part to move education forward.